We all know the story of David and Goliath right? Personally, when I picture David, I’m picturing a slightly short, slimly built boy shirtless in ripped trousers standing in front of a giant. For this story though I’m going to ask you to have a different picture in your head.

Pop a pair of high waisted jeans on David, now add a cute fitted grey blazer (that he’s been looking for an excuse to wear for aaaaages). Give his eyebrows a pluck and pull his hair back into a pony tail. Oh also make him a woman. And also go ahead and make him me. Then alter the picture again so that me-she-David is standing behind a kick ass lawyer because this blazer-wearing-she-Dave has zero law knowledge and isn’t afraid to ask for help!

I’ve spent the last 2 days fretting and dealing with a Goliath company who makes their money by trampling on small businesses, chewing up honest workers, spitting them out and walking away without looking back at the devastation they have left in their wake.

This particular Goliath has taken bites out of many trusting Queenstowners and my own head and limbs have many metaphorical battle scars after the last few days. But even though my hands are shaking and my heart is thudding so hard it’s giving me a migraine I am not going to back down.

Nor should any other Queenstowner for that matter. The situation with this company reminds me of our current David Vs Goliath, Queenstown Vs The World, living situation.

There has been a lot of talk lately about how this “isn’t the place it used to be”, the traffic, the parking, the tourists etc. The crime slowly escalating, the friendliness of locals wearing thin at the edges as we are cut off by yet another distracted tourist on the drive home, the house prices a well known statistic on all our lips. But then there’s a crisis and suddenly Queenstown is Queenstown again, when it counts we still pull together. We send messages of support on Queenstown trading on lost dog posts, we drop off peoples pets to the local vets, lost wallets are reunited with their owners and when I put up a post about our current situation the outpouring of honest caring messages to my inbox was overwhelming. Including from the kind Queenstowner who ended up fixing the awful situation I found myself.

It may be growing up but deep down, Queenstown is still Queenstown. If we as locals keep acting and supporting each other the way we always have then Queenstown will remain Queenstown. The more people that arrive the trickier it will get, and we do have to adapt, but just imagine if they all adopted our Queenstown mindset. We now lock our cars but we can still look out for our neighbours and let them know if we see something suspicious. We need to continue to lead by example no matter how disheartened we sometimes feel lately.